Computer crime investigation
Date: October 15, 2006Source: guardian.co.uk
An investigation has been launched into data recovered from a computer in the US that was found to contain information from hacked computers based in the UK.
The Metropolitan Police's Computer Crime Unit is investigating the data, which was stolen from more than 2,300 computers by the use of a computer virus.
Police estimate around 83,000 files in the UK have been targeted by the hackers but it is thought thousands of computer users around the world may have had data stolen.
Email addresses, passwords, credit card numbers and other confidential information has been recovered by police during the course of the investigation.
The details were harvested from the computers by a type of malicious code known as a "Backdoor".
It is not yet known how many computers have been infected but officers are taking steps to notify the UK victims of the online attack.
Banks and other online services, including internet service providers, are also being alerted.
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